Re: Helium: Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

Hi everyone

Thanks a lot for your help!

I could not find anything wrong in my /etc/fstab but let it be clear I'm no expert!(for instance, as indicated in the above post by johnraff, how could I find out whether UUID is not right / where can I find the right reference to compare it with?)

I changed the last number at the end of each partition line to 1 so I could get fschk to check them at reboot.

When I do a control + D it loops to:

You are in emergency mode....give root password for maintenance(or press control-D to continue):

So second time I type in the password previously set and i get at

root@dgneb:~#

then I can run:

journalctl -xb > journalctl.txt

did it, just need to mount a usb stick to copy it to - will try tonight

Re: Helium: Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

I'd at this point be wondering if the HDD is at the root of the issue (excuse pun) my next test at this point personally would run along the lines:

Boot the live session > disable screen blanking under power optionsopen thunar and disable volume management on the advanced tabopen a terminal and run

sudo badblocks -svn /dev/sda

With those options it's a non-destructive read/write test of the entire disk, If that gives errors, the disk has problems. If it gives more than one or two errors that don't get cleared on a second run, proving the drive firmware successfully replaced bad sectors, the disk is toast. Even on a single run, lots of errors = new hard drive time.It takes a long time to finish, hence the stopping screen blanking. It's also very write intensive, & not something to be run routinely on SSDs, or even at all if avoidable. You didn't mention anything about being on an SSD so I'm assuming spinning rust.

If that's OK, try running fsck on the filesystems in an environment where you have time to see any output, ie still booted from the live DVD.

"failed to connect to lvmtad" > "falling back to scanning" happens on my installs too it seems to be harmless, scanning works still.I think that only happens when I instaall from CD/DVD as opposed to doing a netinstall ('m feeling dozy so that might be the reverse way round), possibly lvmtad doesn't get set up, but in my limited experience it doesn't seem to matter, lvmtad only caches metadata, lvmtad is more about speeding up boot than actually needed.

Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed...If there's an obscure or silly way to break it, but you don't know what.. Just ask me

Re: Helium: Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

Hiin live usb

sudo badblocks -svn /dev/sda

-->

/dev/sda is apparently in use by the system, it is not safe to run badblocks

[EDIT]Ok, as i want to get moving on this and not spend the week-end on it, i have this other,bigger actually, ssd drive; the home data on my current locked ssd is backed up so I'm going to install LB helium on the bigger ssd and then paste the backup data.Thanks everyone for your help, i will hold on to the locked ssd and see if i can connect it to the new system to further investigate ... Or simply refirmat it.Thanks again, i love this forum as i know people are really helpful.Cheers

Re: Helium: Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

[rant] I bet thunar auto mounted it.. that volume management is a royal pita, second thing I turn off after a new install after screen blanking, if I want a disk mounted *I'll* mount it ty.. frankly I connect them as often to test as to access :S [/rant]

I wish you every success, and yes you can always investigate later with it hooked up by usb, or e-sata

With an SSD something as simple as

cat /dev/sd? /dev/null

should alert the drive firmware to any dodgy blocks and cause a remap once it knows it's got a problem reading, if possible it's better to avoid running badblocks on an SSD, or at least any of the read/write tests. With conventional spinning drives the reverse is true and the -svn option refreshes the data, reducing the chance of corruption through bit-rot.

Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed...If there's an obscure or silly way to break it, but you don't know what.. Just ask me

Re: Helium: Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

Usually if a disk is dying it will give hints like io errors, have you had any of these opening applications Beng? Your journal looks like it has some read errors according to systemd but it could be a weird dependency issue that is not being met or has been lost somehow.

When my disk started dying it kept throwing input/output read errors, then again mine was pretty abrupt and i suppose they can just go without warning too.

All the best with it Beng, hope you get it sorted.

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate."...Voilà!

Re: Helium: Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

S7.L wrote:

Usually if a disk is dying it will give hints like io errors, have you had any of these opening applications Beng? Your journal looks like it has some read errors according to systemd but it could be a weird dependency issue that is not being met or has been lost somehow.

Hino no such errors, the problem happened following the removal of an external 4To HD (2 backup partitions, fat32 and NTFS), i requested the eject of the NTFS partition, it gave me the ok but I got a notification it was still writing data to the other partition (I had not used it whatsoever) and just hung (could not move the cursor) - I removed the hard disk and forced restart, on reboot, that's when the issue occured.

Now I have just plugged in the lock SSD drive via USB3 sata connector and my new system does not even pick it up - maybe the power is not sufficient via the USB3 connector; will give it a go with my fully powered universal disk dock, but the power plays at times...

Do you reckon I could put back the disk in and thanks to a live usb access my home directory - i realised i missed some of the data.what's the best / alternative way to proceed in your opinion?thanks

Re: Helium: Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

^ Beng, probably the easiest way to go is boot up into a live session of your chosen distro, BL will do. Have the Drive connected and mounted and get Gparted to check it, gparted maybe able to do some magic. Then as has been said, chroot into the dud drive if you can and get your files out and reformat that sucker.

Failing that and gparted doesn't see your device, maybe take it to a data recovery expert.

Last edited by S7.L (Yesterday 12:35:50)

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate."...Voilà!